U.S. Maneuvers to Keep
Military in the Persian Gulf

Bombing attacks won't drive the U.S. military out of the Persian Gulf, but they may force the U.S to work even harder to figure out how to stay.

Already, because of popular mistrust of the West in the Middle East, the U.S. has no big military bases of its own in the region. Instead, the U.S. relies on aircraft carriers and makeshift hosting arrangements to keep an average of 20,000 American troops, 200 planes and 150 tanks in the area. Some Gulf allies try to keep their arrangements with the Pentagon secret, and they are...